NARAYAN LAXMAN MULERKHI Vs. POSTMASTER GENERAL BANGALORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A certain Malhari was one of the mazdoors employed by the Posts and Telegraphs Department for the creation of telephone lines along the railway track near the Desur railway station which was at a short distance from Belgaum. He was working there from October 4, 1961, and, at 6.30 a.m. on October 14, 1961, while he was returning with a bucket of water which he had collected from a stationary engine on the off-side of the Desur railway station, he was knocked down by an incoming passenger train and killed. His father made an ' application for the payment of a sum of Rs. 2,551 as compensation payable under the Workmen's Compensation Act which was dismissed by the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation, Belgaum, on the ground that the accident did not arise out of and in the course of employment.

(2.) So this appeal.

(3.) Evidence was produced by the appellant that the mazdoors who were employed by the posts and Telegraphs Department for the erection of the telephone line were living in a tent which had been erected near the rail way station and that on the day of the accident, the jamadar under whose superintendence the mazdoors worked had gone to his place and so had entrusted the super vision to two persons named Peerkhan and Nagappa Laxman. the evidence was also to the effect that those two persons asked Malhari to bring water for cleaning the insulators which had to be fixed, and, that Malhari went to the stationary engine to fetch water for that purpose.